Hopefully the last near death experience...

I had the chance to throw a grenade into a small pond at the sketchy shooting range in Cambodia. It was pretty freaking sweet, but there's not much instruction before hand... they just get a grenade from the back room, take you to the pond, take the pin out and hand it to you. I wasnt sure if the time started when he pulled the pin or anything, so I chucked it pretty quick. The major thing they fail to tell me is that a small explosion (that sounds like an M-80) goes off to set the grenade... needless to say that scared the crap out of me... watch!

Cambodian Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving was the second turkey day in a row I spent with friends in a foriegn country. Last year, Italy, this year it happened to be Cambodia. Specifically, it was a small fried rice restaurant in Siem Riep, and I stuffed myself according to tradition. Dinner cost a whole $5 that night (about twice the cost of my next most expensive meal in the past month and a half) but I was thankful to be celebrating with friends.

The real Thanksgiving of the trip will be remembered as the next day's trip to the Temples of Angkor Wat. After a few painfully slow skype calls (sorry 'bout the connection Kirsten and Family!) The three of us ran all over the nearby temple complex. We have had a lot to be thankful for already on the trip, and this day was no exception. The temples were incredible (even though there were so many, they all started to look the same after awhile), and watching the sunset perched on top of Angkor Wat looking out on the temple gardens was icing on the cake!



In the spirit of Thanksgiving, even though I am writing this thousands of miles away, I would like to thank all of you who have kept the three of us travelers in your thoughts and prayers! It really means alot to us. All of your comments and emails are like christmas presents opened every time we can find a decent internet cafe. I am thankful for such great people in my life!!

Dont read any further if you are enjoying a good day...

I don't want to be responsible for depressing any of you, since the major attractions we have seen this week have been the graphic memorials of war and genocide.

The major tourist attractions in Ho Chi Minh City, our last stop in Vietnam, revolve around the "American War". The first historical site we visited was the Reunification Palace. It served as the office of South Vietnam's president until it was stormed by Northern tanks in 1975, effectively bringing an end to the war. The building has hardly been touched since its working days. It still contains its authentic 1970's burnt orange decor and archaic electronic devices. It was an interesting tour, and the first of which to offer a glimpse of the "American War" through the eyes of the Vietnamese as conveyed by the media on display and the local tour guide.

The next day is when things got heavy. We toured the War Remnants museum in central Ho Chi Minh City which showcases the war crimes of American soldiers during the war. Probably one of the most heart-wrenching things I have ever seen in my life. Vivid photos of torture and weapons of war are displayed along with descriptions from war correspondents and local Vietnamese citizens who witnessed the events. Victims of "Agent Orange" raids, and the My Lai (Son My) massacre were displayed on large posters covering the walls. It was very strange to see America in this horrible light. To say that the museum was biased would be a complete understatement, but still I was able to learn a lot from the stories and everything else that I wont describe in further detail.


We continued our war education the next day at the tunnels of Cu Chi. These tunnels were interesting to experience, since I have heard about them in relation to the war, but didn't realize how vast the tunnel network was, or how cramped and miserable the conditions must have been. It was especially sobering since the site was an actual war site. The tunnels were the same ones used by the Cu Chi to escape American raids, the massive holes in the ground from bombs still exist, and the trenches that were fought in still wind through the site.

Another aspect that made this experience so unique was the way the media and the tour guides explained the events. As soon as we arrive at the tunnels, we are crammed into a tiny movie viewing room to watch a half hour video describing the "crazy American devils who came thousands of miles from their homes to slaughter innocent women and children". I never heard that perspective from any history class I have taken in the States. Even the pictures on the walls tried to convey the same message. One picture was of an American soldier pulling another out of the tunnel who was looking gratefully at his fellow comrade. The caption below it read, "Cowardly American soldiers afraid of the tunnels". It was a weird experience through the eyes of the Vietnamese who saw the Americans so differently during that time.

Check out the video page for more crawling through the tunnels.

We left Vietnam the next day, and took a long bus ride into Phenom Phen, the capitol of Cambodia. The hostel we plopped down at was literally a pier built into this sweet lake. The sunsets were amazing, and it served as a great place to just relax for the next few days.

From this place, we booked a tuk-tuk driver to take us to all the major stops around town. First was a (shady) shooting range owned by some ex-military guys. We did some research to make sure we wouldnt be supporting anyone involved in the Khemer Rouge, and proceeded with caution. I'm not a huge fan of guns, but it was pretty fun to shoot an AK-47 and throw a grenade into a little pond (video is on its way...).

From here, we went to the two war memorial sites: the Killing Fields and the S-21 museum. It was definitely a good thing we went to the shooting range first, even though it still felt weird to do in the same day... The Killing Fields were just as in-your-face as the War Remnants museum, except it felt more real because we were walking around the actual site of the massacre of 8000 people. There are pieces of bone just laying out in the path ways, and a monument in the middle built to honor those who died, containing the skulls which were excavated from the graves.

I was pretty worked from seeing the killing fields, so the S-21 museum was sort of a blur. We watched another slanted video, and then toured the high school turned prison which Pol Pot used to hold anyone accused of opposing the Khemer Rouge. Women, children, and ex-officials alike were place in divided up classrooms that were turned into little cells and torture rooms. It was eerie, and overwhelming after already walking through the killing fields.

An interesting fact about the Khemer Rouge led genocide is that it began within months of the closing of the Vietnam war in 1975. It felt like we were on a chronological tour of horrible events: the war in the '60's and '70's, and the genocide into the '80's and early 90's.

Well, thats all I can write about this past week... We are now headed to Siem Riep where the famous temple complex of Angchor Wat is located.

The Vietnamese Truth

Lately, I have been feeling like this... like one big sucker walking down the street. It wasnt bad in Hanoi, but it really took hold in Cat Ba, and has become downright annoying as we move south through the country. Yes, I'm talking about just about every streetside hawker looking at my skin color, and deciding to spit out the only English phrase he has been taught to say, "hello, motorbike" or the more to-the-point, "hello, buy something" or the worst one, "hello, give me money". I'm not one to generalize, but honestly it's hard not to over here. Its predictable with 99.99% accuracy who will approach us and what they will say. And dont judge too quickly either, we put up with it for a while first. Once frustration got the best of me, I decided to not resist it anymore, but instead fight fire with fire. Now, with every question received, I give a question in return. This really gets people confused if their vocabulary is limited to phrases trying to squeeze every last penny from my wallet. But, on the rare occasion that something is returned in polite English, a fun conversation of "where are you from" and "how old are you" can carry on for about 30 seconds until they casually let you know that their second cousin has a tailor shop down the street, or a hotel around the corner. Maybe I sound arrogant or rude, but put yourself in my shoes. Seriously, if you have any suggestions, send me a comment, I'm still trying to perfect this art of dealing with hawkers.

Now for the story of the "Vietnamese Truth". There are a few to tell, but I think it is best explained by our episodes in Hoi An. We arrive on a sunny afternoon and step off our tour bus to look for a hostel. Based on the story above, you might have already guessed that about 10 different guys grab us and try to steer us to their wonderful hostels. Promises of free breakfast, internet, bicycles, swimming pool are thrown around in an attempt to separate one hostel from the next. So, we pick one and head for the hostel only to realize on arrival that he has taken back most of what he has said. Suddenly the price is now 25% more (like we wouldnt notice), breakfast and bicycles no longer exists, unlimited internet turns into 20 minutes each, and the swimming pool is actually located at his friends hotel down the street. It would all sound petty to me too if I read this in the States, but its about principle! So based on this recurrence, we have sadly started refering to these promises as just more "vietnamese truth". I really do hate putting up this guard though; I love seeing the good in everyone, but its a struggle when their motivations are written on their foreheads...
Episode number two: Motorbike Mafia. Our half-truth telling hotel manager learns that we want to rent motorbikes for the following day and insists that we rent from his sister. Why not? But for some reason he wants us to rent them that night for a 24 hour period. Strange, but we agree that if they are stolen it is on him, and proceed with the agreement. All seems well in the morning when we start up our bikes to head off for a fun day at a beach 30km away. Before I can even put my bike in gear, a random guy runs across the street and grabs on my bike, preventing me from moving and says that I cant take this bike out. I tell him about my agreement and try to maneuver around him. Now, about 15 of his buddies surround the three of us, and say the same thing to Carson and Andrew. They cant speak much English except that they will not let us ride the bikes we rented, but instead we can rent crappy ones from them. Ahhh, it all makes sense now; they are just mad they didnt get the sale. Now, I'm over them and try to leave again, but a police officer (or maybe a guy in a costume, I will never know) arrives at the scene. Now the unknown raises this situation to another level. The sister we rented from finally shows up, and the police take her three motorbikes to the impound (maybe...; again, we will never really know). The next day she promises us a free day of motorbikes for our inconvenience. Nice gesture; but conveniently they are not ready the next day, or the day after that. After the second, "they will be ready tomorrow, but when do you leave town" comment, I decided to tell here that we would stay until we get to ride the bikes, she freezes up and suddenly cant speak English any longer. We tried to tranfer her debt to her brother and his motorbikes, but that was a lost cause.

Traveling is weird here in Vietnam. We spend our days trying not to let the hawkers get the best of us, and each town has been built up too much in our heads, but still, life is good. Each day brings a new adventure and keeps us on our toes. I only have one week left until my visa expires, so we will be off to Cambodia shortly. Now, I am off to drink a round of bia hoi in the street again, but this time with a Vietnamese guy we met today who worked with the US as a translator during the war. Could be an interesting night of story...

So much Dong

It's really hard to get myself to write a post after the adventures we had last week... In comparison, things are moving at a much slower pace now. I have that feeling now like the first week of summer after a hectic finals schedule. We have spent the last week in Hanoi, just drinking amazing coffee, eating at French pastry places, walking around town, and finding local streetside beer stands. Sounds great, right? Except I just cant stop feeling the urge to keep doing something.

The great thing about Vietnam is that I can afford to do quite a few things. The currency here called the Dong (yeah, we've made all the jokes already;)) is one of the most devalued in the world, coming in at about 16,000 per dollar. Great for us lowly backpackers who can finally stuff ourselves for dinner for under a buck!

While in town, the only "cultural" sights we saw were the "Hanoi Hilton" (left) and the water puppet show. Both were a dissapointment. About 75% of the prison used in both the French and American wars (what the Vietnamese call them) was destroyed to make room for this fancy hotel... the rest was overly restored. As for the water puppet show, it was as boring as it sounds, despite the positive Lonely Planet reviews.

After an easygoing week in Hanoi, the three of us made our own tour to Cat Ba island (in Halong Bay). The first view of the ocean and the smell of salt in the air made my body feel at home. Once I took a dip in the tropical ocean, I was cured of all remaining bits of altitude sickness and travel aches I had left over from China. While the beach was great, the three of us still had trouble just "being" there (especially me, I just cant sit still on the beach; it gives me so much energy!), so we went off looking for a little more action.



The cheapest thrill on Cat Ba island is definitely the motorbikes. Since it is still early season for tourists, there are tons of streetside hawkers trying (relentlessly!!) for our business. We managed to rent morobikes for 50,000 Dong (less than $5) for the whole afternoon. The island felt like a safer bet than Hanoi to rent bikes, since there are hardly any other vehicles on the road. So, off we went exploring the island and heading towards the National Park somewhere nearby. The park seemed as if it hadn't seen tourists for months, and we easily persuaded the guards to let us take our bikes through the walk paths. We didnt see a single monkey in all the trees, but couldn't care less... we raced over dirt/road paths, up and down hills, and through long tunnels of overhanging trees. And to top off our sunset cruise back to the hotel, we played soccer with a bunch of local kids in a dried up rice field. This little excursion was definitely the redeeming factor for an otherwise boring island.

And now we are off to the central coast of Vietnam. I am crossing my fingers and praying to the surf gods that this typhoon might just send some little waves to our next destination...

It's been a really GOOD week...

In short (for those of you who don't have time for the detail), the three of us drove through Tibet, hiked to Everest Base Camp, took the train back to Beijing and slept on the Great Wall this week. Crazy.

For my loyal fans, here goes the rest of the story:
First I want to write a second take on Tibet. When we arrived in Lhasa, I prematurely characterized all of Tibet into this one city. Once we had a chance to drive through the countryside, and see some authentic Tibetan culture, I felt much more at home in my fantasy of the place. The land is full of nomads, farmers, and merchants who each represent a very distinct population of Tibet. The diversity is sweet, and I was so relieved to get out of the busy city. We drove over some of the highest roads in the world, and saw dozens of unique villages, mountain ranges, lakes, weird contraptions people drive in/on. It is truly one amazing place.

I can best compare the drive out to Base Camp to a surf mission south of the Boarder. The setup of the main highway in Tibet is very similar to Hwy 1 in Mexico- one lane each direction, raised up on a mound, and perilously lacking any form of shoulder or guard rails. The road will go straight for hours, and then suddenly turn into a series of 20 switchbacks up one side of a mountain, and then the same pattern down the other side. Just like Hwy 1, we had to pass laughably top-heavy semi trucks packed with people, animals, crops, etc., but in addition there are the herds of sheep, yak, horses, cows, and mountain goats darting across the road at any unpredictable moment. Pedestrians use the highway as well, and even large groups of school children wandered for miles along the narrow road. If that's not enough, there are horse-drawn rickshaws and weird tractors thrown into the mix that really make the speed of the highway vary. I'm so bummed I never got any pictures of all this (I was too busy using my hands to hold onto the "holy crap" bars inside our "new" 1993 4x4 Toyota Land Cruiser). The coolest part about this drive is the same as on the Mexican highway- that is, turning off the road at some completely non-descript point to venture off and find the secret spot. Our car held up to some serious off roading en-route to the small towns and monasteries where we slept along the way.

My favorite stop along the way was at this castle in Gyantse after our first half-day drive from Lhasa. We literally stumbled up the hillside, starving for oxygen since we had all yet to acclimate. The castle turned out to be one giant big-kids playground with the lack of glass casing, and caution tape we had encountered at all of the other major sights so far. The three of us crawled through little cracks, found "secret" rooms and doorways, climbed up the sides of the walls, and took turns scaring the crap out of each other since the only light we had was the meter light from our little cameras. Maybe you had to be there, but it was so sweet!

OK, on to base camp. The air just kept getting colder and thinner as we approached the base of the mountain range. I never took the time to acclimate properly in Lhasa, and I ended up paying for it when I found myself at 15,600 feet less than a week after months at sea level. But, base camp is what we spent a week of travel to get to, so I had to keep going. When we arrived at Rongpu Monastery in the middle of the afternoon, our driver pointed to the sign that said, "no vehicles beyond this point", which meant that we had to hike the 16km roundtrip to base camp. I was already throwing up and seeing blue spots from altitude sickness at this point, but I needed to see the EBC! The other two guys were really patient with my swaying/ hiking up the trail. Almost to the top of our trek, a car whizzes past us with a group of westerners who were smart enough to "tip" their driver to bypass the sign. Doh!

Base camp was really something special. It was the launching point of the first British expedition led by the famous Sir Edmund Hillary. Although many have used this spot since then, the camp showed no signs of life when we arrived since no mountaineering groups are climbing this late in the season. So, we were able to enjoy the up-close and personal views of the beast (in between raids of thick fog) all to ourselves for a half hour before dragging ourselves down the trail as the sun began to set. It was all really fast paced, but the journey was one that I will never forget!

We booked it back to Lhasa in order to get on the next morning train to Beijing. I started feeling alot better once we backed down a couple hundred feet; I am, without a doubt, a beach kid at heart... The same train let us off at Beijing 48 hours later, where we continued our crazy pace all afternoon taking subways, buses, and cab rides out to the Great Wall. Arriving at night, we were following a vaguely sketched map from a guy we met in our Beijing hostel. Somehow, it led us through dark alley streets and up little driveway hills to a trailhead basically in someones side-yard. Because all the signs said that it was illegal to proceed, we thought it wise to make friends with the property owners. We ate a great feast for a late dinner, and bought a couple beers for the inevitable celebrating, and some canned coffee for the morning, costing each of us a staggering.....$3US. Already a good night. So, we made our way through the side-yard and up the hill, hoping the great wall would find its way into our vision at some point soon. After a 15-20 min easy hike, we found the wall just as a security guard found our party. To our surprise, he led us to the easiest place to scale the wall, and showed us a place to sleep next to his make-shift campsite inside on of the watch towers. We toasted that night with our $0.50 beers and stared at the first stars we had seen all trip. My 40-degree bag hardly cut it that night, but I was so giddy with the thought of where I was and what I was doing, that I hardly cared about the cold.


As I explain in the video page, we really did wake up to M80 blasts at 530ish, and proceeded to hike through the section of the wall that is currently undergoing restoration (aka, closed to tourists). We didn't see a single other person, except for some of the workers when we first woke up. It was epic running up and down the wall taking poser pictures and climbing up parts of the wall/ watchtowers.

So, I knocked two more things off my list, and am now off to Hanoi, Vietnam where I am looking forward to some serious beach time, massage, and tropical drinks in pineapples... It's been a really GOOD week!!

Two weeks in Tibet

Tibet has been everything BUT what I have expected. It is entirely my fault as I fantasized about a mountainous town filled with nomadic tribes, and a few hard-core backpackers. I was crushed when the first advertisements we saw as we stepped off the bus into town were a dozen neon signs for Coors light! I thought maybe it was the altitude, and gave it another chance the next day. The three of us walked through the main street which reminded us all of a small European street. New stone streets ran between big modern buildings. Department stores, banks, high fashion, you name it... it is already in Lhasa. I came expecting to hang out with monks in the hills, but instead we encounter monks everyday walking the streets, talking on their cell phones and shopping just like the rest of the city. The juxtaposition of ancient culture and modernization is really shocking to see in person! Besides the monks, the other western tourists are more abundant than I had expected. Although the city is different than I had anticipated, we are still finding ways to avoid the tourist traps, and explore some of the hidden parts of the city.

The best part of Tibet so far has been the people. Everything about the Tibetan culture is colorful... the way they dress, their buildings, their accessories, their smiles... it is all beautiful. Despite loosing their uphill battle to keep Chinese influence out of their region, they are some of the most genuine and friendly people I think I have ever met. Their faces and smiles are warming, and we have been lucky enough to socialize with a few off the beaten path. Interestingly, I think we have encountered more English speaking locals here than in Beijing. The new train we took is flooding the region with tourists, and the town seems to be anticipating it well... for now. It will be an interesting thing to watch as the tourism industry begins to explode in Tibet.

We have spent the last two days acclimating to the capitol city almost 10,000 feet above sea level. Tomorrow, we depart on a five day tour up to Everest Base Camp. More details to follow when we return...;)